First off, I would like to thank Hooty for his help on monday. Helped me out a lot with brakes and tires. If it wasn't for his help, I would not have made it back with the deuce.
Well, I did eventually get the truck back to NC. Had several problems. FYI, just because GL has a video of the truck driving does not mean the brakes work. I thought they would have to disclose this information for an online auction. They were aware of this truck not having brakes, their maintenance guy mentioned it when I first got there. The air line was leaking at the pump, turned out the line was cracked inside the fitting. We just got a new sleeve for the compression fitting. It still didn't have brakes. The hand brake was adjusted all the way out and barely catching also. The GL guys had me take it outside the gate before doing any more work.
We got out to a gravel area outside the GL site. Hooty was stuck at the visitor's center trying to get on base. He let me know where to fill the master cylinder with DOT 5 fluid. Got some DOT 5 (expensive!). Hoped the brakes would work after adding fluid if not too much air. Still no pedal. We bled the lines a couple of times (starting at back). No pedal. At the same time we were working on replacing the batteries with 27 series car batteries. The voltage was only reading around 25 V while running. I thought it should be around 27-28 based on what car alternators operate at to charge, but thought it may be enough to keep them up with not much load. Hooty got to the GL site and picked up his trailers he bought. They came over and helped bleed the brakes a few more times. Lots of pumping of the brake pedal. We pumped the pedal with the lid off. It looked like a few bubbles may have worked their way back to the master cylinder. Finally, we got some pedal. Bleeding twice is not near enough when there is a lot of air in the lines.
Since we had brakes and running low on fuel, we decided to head off base to a gas station to finish airing up the tires, etc. We noticed one of the tires had a bulge and was starting to separate. Luckily Hooty brought a spare he let me have for a reasonable price. Tried several tire stores and no one would change it. Finally, followed Hooty to a truck stop down the road a bit. It was a Pilot south of Elizabethtown off I-65. They changed the tire almost immediately and didn't charge very much for doing it.
Well we started out again, heading toward Hooty's place. I was going to get another tire from him for a spare since we had already used the one he brought. We stopped about 50 miles down the road at another gas station to check things out. Hooty noticed I had picked up a nail in the tire we just had changed. We made it on over to his place. He offered to swap tires in case the nail was already there and just didn't notice it. I bought another tire from him to use as a spare also.
We left Hooty's well after dark monday night. About 30 minutes down the road I noticed by battery gauge was dropping. Made it as far as London, KY - next to I-75 and stopped to get a room. Batteries were almost dead by this point. The next morning at daylight I hooked up my car to the batteries (one at a time, with car running of course) to charge them some. Left it hooked up to the second battery while cranking. It didn't want to start. Had to use the manifold heater quite a bit. It was below freezing that night. The first time trying it was starting to fire, and I let off the heater switch. It immediately died and the batteries were run down also. Had to charge them up more and try again. It started, and I didn't shut it off until getting back to NC. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Stopped and got a bottle jack at northern tool in Knoxville that was on sale for $40 (20 ton). Luckily I didn't need it on the side of the road.
